Brim006

WF seems to be catching their footing now that Mattern is gaining momentum. I'll guess WF over Davies tonight. And ill guess CHS over Mandan in a close one. FN vs WFS could be a decent one too but I'm guessing FN has the upper hand there? Same for DL vs Minot. Minot should win and probably will win, but this is the type of game DL's goalie could help them steal if he gets hot.

I always think the recruiting piece is a little silly as far as UND hockey goes. UND's world class facilities, tradition and name do the recruiting. Yes, some coaches are obviously better than others, but just about any no name clown could step in and still land top tier recruits year after year. "hey kid, welcome to the Ralph, here is the lockeroom, and here is our long list of NHL legends". Plus, the top end talent is overflowing the NCAA..aka there are more top tier players than there are roster spots. Hence quick success of brand-new teams. The kids will come either way, and typically UND will always have first dibs at a lot of the top choices no matter who coaches. So with that said -----with an essentially automatic pipeline of top tier NHL level players coming in non-stop, it's actually an impressive feat to coach a team so badly to have not made the Frozen Four in nearly a decade, and have only won what, 1 tournament game in that span too? Pull out all the excuses you want but Berry has clearly crept the expectations lower and lower slowly over the past 8 years and it shows. We went from being mad about not getting through the Frozen Four, to being happy to make the tournament every other year. Woof. The other blue chip hockey teams have probably had more drastic of ups and downs than UND....losing seasons, but also in the mix for a Natty or won a Natty. While UND has essentailly just been a bubble team pretty consistently. Viewership is down, true attendance is down, interest overall is down. UND coaches start out on 3rd base and are expected to take it home. Every single year? No. Be in the mix every single year? Maybe, but probably no. He's had a long enough chance and I think it's time for a change.

As Mr. Curl has said "the kid has to want it more than the parents" Aka, most of it is out of your control no matter how much you spend and push for it.

Sorry, yes I had changed the subject from girls hockey to boys hockey. FS/S in particular.

Fargo just needs to be honest and admit it's an unneeded co-op that's just about being competitive and not at all actually about the numbers. What's there to know about the Fargo program....the numbers are there.

Fargo population 140k = 3 varsity teams ( 1 per 47k) 2012 Fargo population 100k = 4 varsity teams (1 per 25k) Bismarck population 75k = 3 varsity teams ( 1 per 25k) Grand Forks population 58k = 2 varsity teams ( 1 per 29k) Minot population 47k = 1 varsity team, soon to be 2 ( 1 per 24k) WF population 42k = 2 varsity teams (1 per 21k) Which one stands out?

Same argument goes for South/Shanley/Oak Grove on the boys side. I'm constantly told they don't have enough kids, yet their roster shows they have 43 this year lol. Not to mention another 20+ on the Junior gold team which probably equates to at least another handful that opted out due to knowing they wouldnt play varsity. I fully understand there's more to it than that, but it seems egregious when about 1/3 of their peers around the state make it work with those numbers.

Wow nice, thanks for sharing! I had Grant listed but missed all others. I’m assuming I’m missing several from WF and Fargo as well. I knew about Kuntz at UNLV, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens with that program!

That’s just kids who have went D1 even after playing through high school in ND without leaving early. The point is that you don’t have to leave early to still obtain good opportunities. Spare me about MN high school hockey and how many more go D1 from there when they have 21x the amount of players and teams…it’s probably a very similar amount that go D1 percentage wise.

I can’t argue that a longer season, more non-con games, and more games in general wouldnt help keep more kids home. In my opinion more games need to happen so hopefully they can make it happen. But overall I don’t get all the doom and gloom chatter about ND boys high school hockey. Kids leaving early isn’t exclusive to just ND HS hockey…it’s happening everywhere. For the most part it’s a silly trend due to parents getting crazier and hockey turning into a money game. Kids leaving early doesn’t pan out the majority of the time, especially kids who leave early for something other than NAHL or higher…and very much especially for kids who leave way early and have no business doing so. Just to pull a few of you back away from the ledge, check out the list of kids who stayed in NDHSH THROUGH their Jr or even Sr year over the “recent” years and ended up playing D1. I even excluded some who played NDHSH for 2-3 years and left after SO year. Also, keep in mind ND only has 20 teams so it seems to be a pretty strong flow IMO given the low population. I’m sure I’ve missed a few…but it still doesn’t look so bad just letting your kid stay at home when you look at this list. If he’s good enough they’ll find him and he’ll get an opp in Juniors when he’s physically bigger and stronger and ready for it after high school. I’d imagine if we were able to compile the list of kids who left too early and ruined their chances it would be a LONGGG list. GFRR SR 2008 - Eric Meland - Princeton GFRR SR 2008 - Alex Simonson - Omaha GPR JR 2008 - Chad Demers - Air Force GFC JR 2010 - Casey Purpur - N mich GFC JR 2010 - Paul Ladue - UND *NHL GFC SR 2011 - Johnny Simonson - UND BC JR 2011 - Aaron Nelson - Mankato GFRR SR 2013 - Jon Lizzotte - SCSU *NHL BC SR 2013 - Alex Rauhauser - Bowling G GPR SR 2014 - Jade Miller - UMD BHS SR 2014 - Jared Spooner - Mankato GFC SR 2017 - Grant Nelson - N mich BC JR 2018 - Kirkland Irey - bemidji GFRR SR 2018 - Mason Salquist - SCSU GFC SR 2018- Kaleb Johnson - UND GFC SR 2019 - Cole Hanson- Maine FD JR 2019 - Cade Stibbe - ASU GFC SR 2020 - Will Howard - Augustana GFC SR 2020 - William Lawson-Body - Ak F FSS SR 2021 - Zach Sandy - UMD Missing a few ???? WF SR 2025 - Bryce Mattern - ASU commit

What town/team? And yes it is getting tough for the small and mid-size towns in ND. They're all getting smaller and smaller and the bigger towns/cities here are getting bigger and bigger.

NDHSAA has some archives for hockey although they're not nearly as robust as they are for basketball and football stats and records. Most of their hockey data seem to be linked to just state tournament stats and records unfortunately. I would think most programs have some archives of their own, but as far as a consolidated archive...I don't think it exists unfortunately. As far as long-standing coaches, the first that comes to mind for me is David Hoff from Bottineau. He completed 30 seasons as head coach for Bottineau before he moved on to coaching the USA Paraolympics team which has had massive success with several world championships and gold medals. But with 30 seasons under his belt in the west, I'd think that although Bottineau was never as consistently good as Century, he probably still won well over 300 games in his career. FYI, Gillen does have stats back into even closer to 2000, but only has 2007 and beyond posted on the site for some reason. I've asked him about it before and he's sent over PDFs of earlier years not on the site.

ND's W/L against MN teams this season was 26-14 making it the 7th straight season of ND having a winning record against MN. Not exactly the top tier teams from MN in most of those games, but take it for what it's worth. Grafton was 4-1 against MN teams... ND State Runner-Up GFC went 5-0 with wins over Warroad, Providence Academy, Bemidji, and 2 over EGF.

I think a lot of years they would compete in top 10 AA by themselves. This year? Probably not, but some of these great RR and GFC teams recently certainly would have. Their Bantam AA team proves that year after year when they finish toward the top of rankings playing against all best of the best that MN has to offer. ND high school hockey isn't all gloom and doom like we make it out to be. I think the EDC is in the top 10-15% of high school hockey in the nation. ND teams have a winning record against MN teams for the 7th year in a row by the way.... MN schools have similar issues of kids leaving but probably just in a different way. The grass is always greener to a lot of hockey parents and it's unfortunately a new mindset and culture of the game. MN has an issue with kids transferring to the biggest and best schools and or private schools too, and a lot still leave for JRs as well. They also have TONS of tiny schools with programs folding and/or just hanging on by a thread. I'd wager that MN has 15-20+ teams worse than BHS was this year. Another positive point for ND hockey. In 2016-2017 ND only had 17 boys varsity teams, and now 7 seasons later there are 20 (17% increase), and likely soon to be 2 more (Horace and N Minot) and maybe someday the possibility of South and Shanley breaking back out if Shanley's enrollment keeps growing. Although slow, I do really think hockey in the west is growing. Watford with their beautiful new 2 sheet rink, Minots additions and upgrades, Bismarck adding another sheet and now apparently another private 2 sheet rink in the works, Mandan youth hockey exploding since their new 2 sheet facility, UMARY hockey bringing big excitement to the Bis/Man area with rumors of a possible partnership with scheels for a big nice rink on campus up on the hill overlooking the Missouri River with more rumors of possibility of going D1 some day, Minot State with similar rumors that seem somewhat reaslistic with Augustana's success (NSIC peer). Crosby and I believe maybe even Dickinson and Williston did some rink upgrades as well? Lastly, I've noticed in the short time I've lived in Bismarck how much hockey has grown. All of the sudden there are 4 different hockey training programs and groups running all year round. Tons of excitement and opportunities growing around hockey out here which mix well with a growing community.

Seems like an odd take to me, and/or maybe just anecdotal one from a GF resident's perspective. Sure, there are far more kids leaving NDHS hockey than we'd like to see, but the truth is the VAST majority stay. And the ones that stay have looked up to their varsity teams their entire lives and hockey careers. I think every team in the state has pride in where they're from and who they play for, it's just easy to say GF has more of it since they're so consistently good, and are able to backfill those lost players much easier than pretty much everyone else due to sheer hockey depth, tradition and school size. Grafton, DL, Jamestown, etc. lose 2-3 top players to Jrs or wherever and it destroys their chances of a successful season and you can say they have no pride in playing for their hometown. GFC or GFRR lose 2-3 top players and they just bump up other top-tier players and still win and it masks the fact that they had just as many players leave. That does not equal more pride, it just equals more depth IMO.

Are there no restrictions or approvals needed for co-ops? If not, why doesn’t Fargo+WF just get it over with and create a mega Fargo co-op combing every single school in the area to make sure they never lose.

Unfortunately Beasley is most likely leaving too I would imagine?

Minot on an island? LOL! 4th largest city in the state, fairly centralized geographically and right on HWY 2 and HWY 83... Tell me you're from Fargo without telling me you're from Fargo. On the boys side Minot is less than a 2-hour drive for 8 of the teams in the state (including Minot). Fargo appears to be 9 if you include Mayville, Grand Forks 10, Bismarck 8. On the girls side Minot 5, Fargo 5, Grand Forks 5, and Bismarck 5. Not saying it's the ideal location for state but just couldn't help myself pointing out that silly argument.

The Maysa was renovated and is actually very nice. Definitely not a #$%! hole.

I'd say class B (or now Class B and 1A) seem to have the biggest crowds and Class 2A (old class A) seems to lack crowd size and always has comparing to Class B. But with that said, in hockey the "issue" is that it lacks variety. GFRR or GFC are the clear favorite 9 out of 10 times and until there's a little more of a mix I don't see the excitement and/or crowd size around state hockey getting much bigger. I recall being at the record setting attendance game when Grafton was in the championship. They opened up the upper deck at the ralph and had to start pulling down those huge team posters to open up more seats. Certainly aren't going to see that type of interest when it's GFC vs RR. Props to those schools for being so consistently strong year after year, but until there's a better mix of teams in the running for a championship, we just won't see bigger crowds.

Agreed. It seemed like North was the only team on the board that had a strong chance to derail one or both of the GF teams. Minot seems to be peaking at the right time but I still don't see them winning tonight. FSS has some firepower but their back end weaknesses will far surpass that. They've allowed 5 or more goals 7 times this season for a total of 85 goals allowed which is actually more than they've scored. All GF championship...

Yes, and it's not even close. Minot total high school combined enrollment = 2,126 (I think it peaked at roughly 2,400) West Fargo High School = 1,426 West Fargo Sheyenne = 1,382 Horace = 674 West Fargo United combined enrollment = 3,482 (over 1,000 more students than Minot High was at it's historical peak)

They likely own the record for highest enrollment total for a single team in ND high school sports history which seems pretty special. WF, WFS and Horace.

This is good news for Abrahamson at least for recruitment purposes. Looks like only 50 players listed nationally. Guess how many of the 3 finalists made this list? lol

Yeah, it probably will. But for me, the first thing I think of is that she got shafted for some extra (rightful) recognition, which maybe could've given her recruitment a boost. I enjoy following her because she's a rarity this day and age due to sticking with her lower performing small program when she easily could've taken those offers from Warroad and whoever else has called over the years. A few of her teammates took those calls and left. So part of me worries younger athletes see things like this happen and it further fuels this current trend of athletes having little to no commitments to their programs and leaving for the next best thing without batting an eye. Again, it's just an award but I just hate to see an old-school committed kid get burned, that's all.